1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of firearm locks and more particularly to a gun lock for pump action shotguns which is preferably key-operated and conveniently locked and unlocked without undue delay.
2. Background Art
In 1997, over thirty-five percent of United States households had firearms. Twenty-seven percent had shotguns. These homes contained 192 million firearms. Numbers of such guns have only increased since. Sixty five million were handguns. Twenty-eight million were semi-automatic weapons. Forty-nine million were shotguns. Fifty-four percent of these owners admitted that their firearms were kept unlocked. Twenty percent of the owners admitted that their firearms were kept unlocked and loaded. Thousands of children have actually died in accidental shooting deaths over the past few years, with many more injured. Forty-six percent of the owners stated that they obtained the firearms to protect themselves against criminals.
The California State Legislature found that from 1987 to 1996, nearly 2200 children in the United States under the age of 15 died in unintentional shootings. In 1996 alone, 138 children were unintentionally shot and killed. Nearly eight times this number of children are treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms yearly for non-fatal, unintentional gun shot wounds. In 1997, the rate of such deaths in the United States was nine times higher than in twenty-five other industrial nations combined. Thus, the United States has the dubious distinction of leading the world in the rate of these deaths. A study reported in the December 1995 xe2x80x9cArchives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicinexe2x80x9d found that 25% of 3 and 4 year olds and 70% of 5 and 6 year olds had sufficient finger strength to fire commonly available firearms. The GOA in its March 1991 xe2x80x9cAccidental Shootingsxe2x80x9d estimated that 31% of accidental shooting deaths might be prevented by devices which like the present invention both made the weapon automatically resistant to discharge by a child and indicated whether the firearm is loaded.
State laws mandating the purchase of gun locks with firearms, such as California""s Penal Code Section 12088.1(a), have done little to alleviate the problem. Before locking a gun, such locks must be mounted onto the gun""s trigger guard. When the gun is thereafter unlocked, the lock itself must first be unlocked and then also dismounted from the trigger guard. The time needed to unlock and dismount the locks from locked guns, renders such locked guns practically useless when they are needed to quickly respond to a threat such as where a burglar is surprised or in a home invasion robbery. So, in order to keep their weapons practically available for their stated purpose of home defense, a large portion of gun owners simply do not lock their guns, whether these gun owners have or have not been forced to purchase a lock with their guns.
The pump or slide-action shotgun is the dominant type of shotgun in the United States today. More money is spent for pumps than for shotguns of any other type, and possibly more pumps are sold than muzzle or breech loading shot guns. Just about every American manufacturer of shotguns makes a pump.
Therefore, a quickly unlocked and deployed built-in gun lock for pump-action shotguns would address a significant portion of the firearms market and alleviate a principal concern of gun owners in keeping their guns locked and, thus, safe from children and those adults not authorized to use the weapon.
The present invention, in its preferred embodiment, comprises an integrated or built-in key-operated gun lock of the type having a rotatable swivel arm. The lock is preferably positioned at the fore-end of the pump slide handle or arm (which is also sometimes itself called a forend, forend grip, forearm, forestock or stock and which moves the forearm slide) so that, when deployed in the locked position, the swivel arm interferes with the forward motion of the slide handle thereby preventing the shotgun trigger from being reset or engaged for firing the weapon. The swivel arm is preferably located between the slide arm and the pump magazine. A stationary ring may be installed on the magazine tube or, depending upon the existing configuration of the shotgun, an existing ring such as the ring commonly used to brace the magazine tube to the gun barrel, may be employed to cooperate with the swivel arm. When the lock is deployed to prevent firing of the weapon, the swivel arm is rotated into a forward-facing direction so that it contacts the aforementioned stationary ring as the slide arm is slid forward along the magazine tube, but before the slide arm reaches its fully forward position where it can reset the shotgun trigger. When the lock is unlocked, the swivel arm is rotated, for example about 90xc2x0 so that it can no longer interfere with the full motion of the slide arm so that the trigger can be reset and the rifle can be fired. An elongated slot in the slide arm may be provided to permit the swivel arm to extend laterally when the lock is opened.
In an alternative embodiment, the lock is located at the rear end of the slide arm to interfere with the rearward motion of the slide arm when the lock is deployed. Irrespective of the location of the lock, the lock may optionally be simultaneously employed to activate one or more electrical circuits in the deployed or unlocked configuration, such as an optional TASER(copyright) weapon (activated when the rifle is locked) or an optional strobe light or steady light.